Driver, conductor held in GenSan blast probe

GENERAL SANTOS CITY – A jeepney driver and conductor were picked up by police for questioning yesterday after witnesses identified their jeepney as the getaway vehicle of the suspects in Sunday’s bombing of the GenSan Fitmart Center that killed 15 people and wounded 60 others.

Superintendent Jose Pante, commander of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in General Santos City, said his men will find out if Rommel Sulanting, 32; and Kating Man, 21; were on their jeepney near the crime scene at 3 p.m. Sunday right after the shopping mall was bombed.

"The jeepney is similar to the vehicle identified by our witnesses used by the bomb suspects," he said. "If they would be proven to be with the bomb suspects, then charges will be filed against them."

However, Sulanting told police he and Man were not at the scene when the terrorists attacked because they stopped plying their route and went home to rest at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) summoned yesterday Elmer Ubaldo, station manager of dxKR Radio Agong in Koronadal City, which aired the interview with Rizal Kitango, alias Abu Muslim al-Ghazie, self-styled commander of the Abu Sayyaf Special Operations Group.

In the interview, Kitango claimed responsibility for the bombing of two shopping malls in General Santos City, including Sunday’s attack on GenSan Fitmart, some 30 meters away from City Hall.

Ubaldo had also interviewed Kitango in the past after the previous terrorist bombings of several shopping malls in the commercial center of General Santos City.

NBI investigators said Ubaldo can help them in filing multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder charges against Kitango.

They also want Ubaldo to execute an affidavit attesting that he had interviewed Kitango and that Radio Agong’s technician had recorded the interview.

Following the bombing, police arrested five people whom they believe had planted and detonated the powerful bomb outside the GenSan Fitmart shopping mall.

They are: Moniken Ambi Puntuan, Modesto Tabilo, Abubakar Amihalsan, Arsol Ginta, and Jehjon Macalinsan.

During a raid in a house in Sitio Lote in Barangay Calumpang Tuesday, police seized four rounds of 60 mm mortars, two handguns, two kilos of bronze wires, and four kilos of lead.

Police believe these are being used in making bombs.

Charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives have been filed in court against Amihalsan, Gita, and Macalinsan, from whose possession the bomb-making paraphernalia were found. – With Edith Regalado, Marichu Villanueva